A BICYCLE THIEF AT WORK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1291, 26 November 1896, Page 10

A BICYCLE THIEF AT WORK.

Bicycle stealing, as it is practised in Great Britain, forms the subject of an interesting article in the Detroit Free Press. The writer, Mr Luke Sharp, sav3 : —An energetic man with a paint brush, a soldering iron, and a file can in ten minutes so disguise a bike that its next of kin would not recognise it, and it does not possess the faculty of the horse for knowing its real master. A bicycle has never been known to neigh at the wrong moment and thus betray a hiding thief, who trusted to its good sense. So, all in all, a bike is a simply ideal subject for successful theft. Many of us who have hitherto led reasonably honest lives will, I foar, be led astray if this bicycle boom continues. The machine itself actually seems to be an accessory both before and after the act. The riding of it along a dusty road makes a man thirstier than any other occupation he can undertake. He therefore adjourns frequently to the wayside inn, there to partake of cooling drinks ; ginger beer and such. There is usually no one in sight, and he leaves the machine resting against the outside of the pub. When he comes out, wiping his mouth, the machine is gone. The whole process is delightfully simple. There is not the slightest use in asking the wayfarer if he has seen a man passing that way on a cycle, for the wayfarer has ; dczjns of him. Now, with a horse, one can give a rough description of the animal stolen, but to the ordinary men on a country road, all cycles are alike, and once a thief gets away with a machine it is an impossible task to attempt to recover it. There are in London at least three, i possibly many more, receiving depots for | stolen cycles. They bea,r the guise of repairing shopes and sales rooms. They have most of the paraphernalia for enamelling and plating, and once a cycle spends a few hours in the shop its own maker would not recognise it. The first thing done is to interchange the parts of the cycles as much as possible. From a dczen stolen cycles a dozen others j.re made, one machine being made up of various parts of various other machines. The handle bar of a pneumatic-tyred machine changes place with the handle-bar of a cushiontyred cycle, and so on. Then no description a man can give to the police regarding his machine tits any particular cycle. The numbers are obliterated by soldering and plating, and new numbers are put on. If a machine is not interchangeable with any other machine it is painted up and sent over to France or Germany to be sold at the Continental agencies. The others that have been made unrecognisable under any circumstances are easily sold at the London depots or by way. of an advertisement in the papers. The daily papers are full of advertisements of bicycle's that have been made up in this way. ' Generally when a thief takes a machine away from the outside of a tavern, where he picks the best of several, he rips the tyres of those he leaves behind, so that pursuit is delayed until it is too late, One thief the other week, wanted the earth, and so got left. There were three machines standing together, outside a vil- | lage inn, and he took the lot, riding off with one empty machine trundling along on each side of him. He had a clear way down a long hill, and if he had disabled the two cycles he could have got away easily with the third. The owners almost immediately learned of the theft, and started on foot after thc : robber \ appar* ently a most hopeless tasL. However, the hill proved the undoing of the thief. The 3peed apparently frightened him, and he tried to put on the brake. Whether he lot go of the right hand machine or not is not known, but anyhow it was seen to make a sudden independent dash between the two wheels of the cycle that bore the man, and nexc instant there was an indistinguishable mass composed of threo cycles, one thief and several earpiercing yells, rolling down to the feet of the hilj. A friend of mine who cycles told m,e a most involved story of a cycle theft that \ am not sure I quite understand. lie said he was at a country bar at which stood five men —strangers to him, and apparently strangers to each others \ in fact it turned out that not one of them had ever before met any of the others. When the j teller of the story, who was the second man out, looked for his machine, he saw that it was gone, and he noticed the first j man out rapidly sprinting down the road with it. It was no time for protracted conversation or explanations, so my friend immediately sprang on the best remaining machine and started in pursuit. The next fellow who came out saw his machine tearing down the road with a stranger on top of it, and away he goes on the fourth man's machine. In les3 time than it takes to tell what I thoroughly believe to be a fabrication, the whole six were chaßing each other, making the terrified inhabitants of that part of the country believe there was a road-race on. It turned out, so my friend saya, that no bicycle was stolen at all. As I understand the situation the first man merely made

a mistake and mounted the wrong bicycle, leaving his own machine in place of the one he took. It seems to me this is a most unlikely thing to have happened. Anyhow, that is the story as it was told to me.

There is one man (name at present unknown) who is having a rattling good : time stealing bicycles, and who is seeing a good deal of the country. He does not seem to be in the profession for profit, so perhaps he is merely learning the trade. | He resembles one of those distant planets, j invisible to the most powerful telescope, | only known to exist by its effects on other heavenly bodies. This perambulating thief takes a bike wherever he finds it and jogs along to a tavern anywhere from twenty to fifty miles away from the stealing point. Here he fares sumptuously, and drinks the best champagne, if there is any. He leaves the bicycle in charge of the innkeeper, especially impressing upon him that it is a most valuable instrument,fand that he wouldn't have anything happen to it for a small fortune. Then he goes for a stroll round the village leaving his bill unpaid, but the inn-keeper feels no anxiety as he has in his possession this most valuable bike. The thief meanwhile has picked up another machine and is on into the next county. There he will stay all night, and in the morning make off with a third machine. Wnen anyone who is robbed finds his machine uninjured in the hands of an innkeeper, he is usually so overjoyed at its recovery that he gladly pays the hotel bill, and takes away his machine. The amount i 3 so comparatively small that he rarely gives the case into the hands of the police or bothers any more about it. Thus the thief travols unmolested from one end of the country to the other and back again by another route, faring sumptuously every day on the fat of the land without paying a penny for board and lodging or for transport either. The plan has much too recommend it, and we cordially cammend it to the attention of amateurs in the gentle art of robbery.